06 November 2017

Templates Manager For All SharePoint Document Libraries

Today we have released a new version of Templates Manager for SharePoint, the product that helps admins distribute templates to the whole organization and makes it easy for users to find the right template. Now Templates Manager User works on all kinds of SharePoint document library interfaces.

For both Publishers and UsersTemplates Manager solves two problems: how to publish templates to the whole organization in one go and how to find and use the right template. Therefore the installation has two parts: Templates Manager Publisher and Templates Manager User.

When Templates Manager Publisher is activated on a site, a templates library that serves the whole farm or tenancy is created. In this library, administrators can upload, categorize, publish and remove template files. Templates Manager Publisher normally only needs to be activated on one or a few sites.

Templates Manager User is intended to be used on many more sites, because this is the part that makes the templates available in document libraries. Templates Manager User allows the users to search or browse among all templates in a specified templates library and select the template that is best for each purpose.

SharePoint Online New experience and Office 365 Groups
Up till today, Templates Manager has only supported the classic experience interface. This was actually the only existing interface in all SharePoint editions when we released Templates Manager in 2015!

After the release of Templates Manager, a lot has happened to SharePoint Online and Office 365. The new experience interface has been introduced in SharePoint Online libraries, lists and pages, and the Office 365 Groups have been much enhanced and are now used more widely than before.Templates Manager supports all SharePoint editions, but many of our subscribers use Office 365 and SharePoint Online. Some of these organizations have kept the classic experience and others prefer to let their staff use Template Manager Client in their local Office applications.

However, our SharePoint products should never force any limitations. The easy choice of templates given by Templates Manager User should be available for everyone, even if they use the new experience interface and Office 365 Groups sites.

Templates Manager User Add-in
It was not easy to find a solution that would support all SharePoint editions from 2010 and all kinds of document library interfaces. We decided to create an extra add-in for Templates Manager User, which only has to be installed by organizations who want to use the SharePoint Online new experience and Office 365 Groups.

Other organizations can just activate the sandboxed solutions of Templates Manager Publisher and Templates Manager User, as before. And if all users select templates with Templates Manager Client in their local Office applications, only the publisher part has to be activated.

Due to limitations in the new experience interface, the templates library can still only be used with the classic experience. We don't see that as a problem, as the publisher part is only used by a few people. What feels important now, is that we can offer a way to make Templates Manager User available in all kinds of SharePoint document libraries.

Upgradekalmstrom.com Subscribers have free upgrades, and I recommend current users to upgrade their installations. The upgrade page has a description of the process, and if you are using Templates Manager in many sites we can give a PowerShell script that takes care of everything. Please contact support@kalmstrom.com if you have questions!

Try it!Evaluators can try Templates Manager for SharePointfor 30 days without any obligations and with full support from the kalmstrom.com team. If your organization needs a smooth way to distribute document templates in SharePoint, welcome to have a look at Templates Manager!